14 Responses to Tarot History – Part 1

This is an excellent ..Im of the idea that the tarot is merely for focusing. I disagree with using the tarot as a form of intuitive development . I do however feel that there is a spirituality in the use, but by no means a religion.. I have also found that when I do a reading, for another, the reading is very accurate, I avoid doing readings for myself.

Thank you so very much!!! My father is a card historian and I support what you are doing 100%. It is so easy to re-quote mis-information without ever checking the facts. It is true that because Tarot is an altered version of the 4-suit deck does not mean it is not good for card reading. I prefer the playing cards myself for readings. My video supports yours and presents it in a little different way: Before Tarot – The Deck of Prophecy. Thanks again!!!

7:04 Why such dark images for a game? There is a Bingo type game popular in Mexico and amongst Americans of Mexican descent called Lotería which uses cards similar to the Tarot cards depicted here. The game of Lotería also has a Death card and a Devil card or really Little Devil (El Diablito)

Thank you both Oulder and ANIideas for your comments and recognition. I gues one of the points I’m trying to make is that the tarot may have been adapted to communication, even if not invented for the purpose of education intially. Also, if the cards were used as a visual supplement to oral communication as an alternative to written text, written documentation concerning use as such might negate the purpose in doing so.

My internet connection was lost while replying. If it didn’t get to you, I would like to say thank you for your comments. You make your points and cite facts. I can only hope that other people commenting here, although differing in opinion, are as well educated in this matter as you are.

Having said all of that (and while we will differ on things later), like Oudler, I have to say that this is one of the rare films on the subject that has been properly researched. Five stars worth of it.

While I agree that there may well be an allegory in the trump images, we do lack any possitive evidence for that. Also, while many have read many systems and ideas into the cards, we lack any corroborative evidence for any of them. We are left only with wild speculations and the only use of which we are certain is for playing games.

We should also keep in mind that the tarot pack had a fore-runner, employing Greek gods for a theme, a prototype suggesting that the theme may not be important.

I’m not sure why we should not assume that the wealthy should not spend time devising idle pass times – they were the one group of people who actually had the time to enjoy. This is particularly true some of the women of the court, who we have much mention of playing the games.

Also, I would be tempted to assume the extra cards were added to Minchiate to enable the game which they were used to play. The main goal to win sequences and combinations of trumps – hence the need for more of them.

I should point out that The Female Pope would certainly NOT have been considered heretical. This was an established figure in Christian art at the time – and continued to be through to the 19th century – being used to represent a number of things such as the New Coventant and the Virtue of Faith.

The deck shown at 0:55 is a typical Spanish suited deck of cards. I have a few in my collection. The word “naipes” is in current use amongst many Spanish speaking card players and like many words in that language it is of Arabic origin.

One of the more well researched works on the topic. As the video points out, the early Tarot had no numbers or inscriptions so players had to use the images to memorize the ranking of the trump cards. I think to best understand the intentions of the creators of Tarot is to understand games which might be similar.
Snakes and Ladders and Rhythmomachia are two games with “serious” content. S&L is based on Dharmic religion and Rhthmomachia is based on number mysticism.

Well this one really gets in depth. It also nicely connects Tarot divination with earlier forms of cartomancy. In fact, It might be good if the word “cartomancy” were used as a tag for this video. Well done.